


Between Heaven and Hell

by magnoliafilms



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Angel/Demon Relationship, Fallen Angels, Hurt/Comfort, Kissing, Like literally they were built for each other, M/M, Sacrifice, Soulmates, demonic creatures
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2020-12-04
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:54:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27613084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magnoliafilms/pseuds/magnoliafilms
Summary: Yuta was a dangerous thing. Fire ran hot in his veins and pooled in the chasms behind his eyes. His hands ended in darkened claws that he tended to scratch himself on if he wasn’t careful. Black and curling horns sprouted from the sides of his head, and his forked tongue sat heavy in the bottom of his mouth between rows of sharpened teeth.Yuta was many things, and Mark was everything he was not.
Relationships: Mark Lee/Nakamoto Yuta
Comments: 14
Kudos: 83
Collections: Challenge #3 — soulmates





	Between Heaven and Hell

**Author's Note:**

> I tried writing this twice, the first time was really a very poor attempt, but I'm actually really pleased with how "take 2" turned out. 
> 
> Also for Dream Lab Bingo Square: Demonic Creatures!

Yuta was a dangerous thing. Fire ran hot in his veins and pooled in the chasms behind his eyes. His hands ended in darkened claws that he tended to scratch himself on if he wasn’t careful. Black and curling horns sprouted from the sides of his head, and his forked tongue sat heavy in the bottom of his mouth between rows of sharpened teeth.

Where he came from, he was a nobody. Simply another creature condemned to spend eternity in a decrepit basin of hellfire. His lungs were charred from breathing in a millennia’s worth of acidic smoke. Skin thick and hardened from layers of acidic rain that tended to fall from a false sky.

And where Yuta was deadly, Mark was everything he was not. 

Mark was bright. His head wasn’t weighed down by thick horns, rather it was encased in a glowing golden circlet. His hands were soft, and bore no hazardous claws at the tips. Mark was good. 

Yuta knew that it was unsafe to think such things, especially in a place like _The Underneath_ . But it was _Mark_ , and he knew nothing else for certain. 

They had been built for each other. Carved from the very earth The Creator shaped the world out of. Two parts of one whole. And they had been happy. Mark hadn’t minded Yuta’s talons, or forked tongue. The heat that resided beneath his skin.

And then came the divide. 

The Creator wasn’t happy. He believed that his creatures weren’t divine enough, that their halves made them “impure.” He took his rage out on his own half. Cursed him and banished him from the realm of the holy.

He was nought but a creature like Yuta.

Heartbroken, The Creator’s half took to _The Underneath_ , and in his fury, brought down the lesser creatures. The _Demonics_.

Over time, most of the other Hell-Creatures forgot their otherworldly counterparts, their other halves. But Yuta clung to his memory of Mark, it was the only thing that kept him sane most days. 

When they discovered that they could still find each other, Yuta had cried. He’d clawed his way out of that hellhole and found himself in another realm, a midpoint between two indefinite spaces. Mark had flown down to meet him. They’d held each other as they wept. 

Mark still looked beautiful when he cried. They knew it was dangerous. That if they were caught, they’d both be punished. But it didn’t stop them from trying. Tying their complimentary souls together, clinging to each other in secret, pressing forbidden kisses against lips and hands and skin. Craving the sensation of _wholeness._

Mark liked the way Yuta’s forked tongue felt in his mouth. He claimed that it reminded him of what they’d had before the divide. Yuta would always take care of where he placed his hands, he couldn’t bear scratching Mark with his claws. 

They hid what they had away. Never uttered a word of what they were doing to another breathing soul. And yet, they knew that some were becoming suspicious of where they went. It was uncommon to leave _The Above_ , and it was even more difficult to get out of _The Underneath_.

Yuta left one day knowing he was being watched. He told Mark as much when they met in the shade of a plum tree. Mark had allowed a single tear to roll down the side of his face. Yuta had pressed a kiss to his cheek, stopping the tear in its tracks. 

It was salty against his tongue and he pressed his forehead against Mark’s. Together they breathed out a matching weary sigh. 

“Damn it all,” Mark whispered fatally and took Yuta’s face in his hands, curled his fingers into his long dark hair. His blunt nails dragged across Yuta’s scalp and he shivered as Mark pulled him in. 

Yuta had never been one to deny him anything. Where Mark’s movements were frantic, almost desperate, Yuta’s were slowed. He had to take care not to hurt Mark with all of his dangerous parts. 

Mark pressed him up against the trunk of the plum tree they stood beneath. The rough bark dug through the coarse fabric of his tunic and poked at his skin. But Yuta was good at taking what he could. 

Yuta felt it. The shifting of something in the air. He had expected this, as had Mark. The sensation of being observed. He pulled away and watched as Mark’s face crumpled. 

“There’s someone here,” he whispered.

Yuta nodded. He glanced around, searching for any sign of movement. And just when he thought that he’d got it all wrong, he saw it. The shadowy figure of somebody standing behind a neighbouring tree. 

Yuta stepped forwards, pushing Mark behind him. Creator forbid if he let Mark get hurt. 

“Who’s there?” He called out into the darkness as Mark wrapped a hand around his upper arm. 

There was a laugh, cold and cruel. “Oh, Yuta.” The voice said harshly, “What are you doing out here with one of _them?_ Is this where you’ve been coming?”

Yuta bristled, he could feel the hairs at the back of his neck standing on end, “ _Jaehyun_ ,” he hissed.

Jaehyun all but cackled as he stepped out into the light. His eyes blazed with unexplainable hatred and he flexed his claws as he spoke, “You know this is against the rules, Yuta.” 

A second figure stepped into the light beside him. Halo glittering and eyes hard and teeth gritted. Yuta felt Mark tense behind him.

“And we can’t have rule breakers in our midst.” The Angel said.

“Sicheng,” Mark whispered, so quietly that Yuta believed for a second that he might have been the only one to hear it. 

Sicheng’s eyes narrowed. “Come with me, Mark. Leave this all behind. If you vow to never see him again, we can all just forget this ever happened. The Creator doesn’t have to get involved.”

Mark’s blunt nails dug into the skin of his arm. “No.” He said quietly and Yuta understood.

He turned his head slightly so that he could keep an eye on the pair in front of him while speaking directly to Mark. 

“Are you sure?” He asked quietly, and Mark responded by pulling him in for a definitive kiss. For a moment, Yuta forgot they had an audience. 

“You’re making a big mistake, Mark.” Sicheng said, and Jaehyun only frowned at Yuta disapprovingly. 

Yuta wondered if they remembered the time before the divide. Before all of Demon-kind were banished to _The Underneath_. They were like he and Mark once. Perfectly suited to one another. 

Perhaps that was why they stood together today. There was an almost uncomfortable space between them, as though they were afraid to stand too close to each other. There was no affection between them, but Yuta knew that there was still something tying them together. 

Mark twisted their hands together, avoiding Yuta’s claws with a careful accuracy he’d perfected over time. 

And then Sicheng was lifting his hands to his mouth, raising his face to the sky. He called out a name no demon could ever utter, and in a flash of light, The Creator stood before them. 

There was something intimidating in the way he looked down at the pair of them. Mark stepped to the front and pushed Yuta behind him. The Creator took one look at their linked hands and his carefully constructed mask of indifference shattered. 

“You have forsaken your kind!” He bellowed, and Mark shook under the weight of his words. But still, he stood strong, squeezed Yuta’s hand a little tighter. 

Sicheng and Jaehyun had disappeared as soon as The Creator had arrived. 

“You know the punishment.” The Creator said, and he almost seemed disappointed, almost appeared regretful.

Mark nodded, and so it began. 

Yuta had always thought Mark’s wings were beautiful. Soft feathery plumage covering tense muscle and bone. Looking at them now, as they were slowly but surely encased in a thick black sludge, Yuta felt the first of tears pooling among his eyelashes.

Mark’s bottom lip quivered, but he gazed up at The Creator as the process took place. They called it _The Unbecoming_ , the careful destruction The Creator exacted on angels who disobeyed. 

His feathers began to fall and —sticky with black sludge— they shriveled up and disintegrated as they landed on the grass. What was left of Mark’s wings were leathery appendages that resembled the wings of a cartoon dragon. 

The sludge spread, wrapping around his torso, spiralling down each arm and up his neck. Mark tore his hand away from Yuta just as the sludge encased his fingertips. When it receded, his hands bore talons like Yuta’s.

Mark’s eyes went wide as the sludge travelled further up his neck. It pushed in through his mouth, in his nose and ears and eyes. The sound that emerged from the back of Mark’s throat made Yuta want to scream. Gurgling and guttural, all Yuta could do was watch.

And then everything was silent. The Creator disappeared, and with him, he took the black sludge away. The damage was done though, and Mark sunk to his knees, tears fresh in his blazing eyes.

Yuta dropped beside him and pulled Mark into his lap. Wiped away tear tracks and pressed his hands against the thick skin of Mark’s new wings. He ran his fingers carefully through Mark’s hair. 

His halo had cracked and fallen to the ground the second the sludge had moved on his wings. Mark wouldn’t get horns. It would always be his wings that set him apart from the other demons, from those who lived in _The Underneath_. Yuta’s heart ached as Mark coughed out body-shaking sobs. 

“It’s been a long time since I last saw him actually go through with it.” Said a voice from the shadows, the voice laughed, “In fact, it’s been a long time since I’ve seen him at all.”

Yuta jolted, head whipping up. He tried to wrap his arms around Mark a little more, attempting to create a better barrier against this unseen threat. 

Out of the shadows stepped The Creator’s other half. He looked exhausted, and still somehow just as intimidating as The Creator himself. 

“How’s he doing?” The man asked, and Yuta was shocked to find that he looked genuinely concerned. 

“Mark?” Yuta whispered quietly.

“Ok…” was all Mark managed before tucking his head back into Yuta's chest. 

The man gave them both a look of the strangest sympathy. “They usually handle it far worse than he’s doing. He must really love you.”

This last part he uttered almost bitterly, and Yuta narrowed his eyes.

“Are you here to punish me, Sir?” He asked quietly.

There was a moment of silence, until finally, the man laughed again. “No,” he said sadly, “No, I’ve never– I’ve never been one to punish people for their love. During the divide– I was young, and I was heartbroken, and I took that anger out on those like me. I– I’m sorry for that.”

He breathed out a painful sigh, “I’m not here to punish you, Yuta. Nor am I here to separate you two. He needs you now, more than ever. Who am I to get in the way of something like that?”

Yuta let out a shaky breath he hadn’t realised he was holding. “Thank you, Sir.” He whispered and the man shook his head.

“I just wish I’d been allowed the same courtesy. He’ll be welcome in my kingdom, Yuta. Don’t worry about that, his sacrifice was one of bravery.” Then he turned to go, making his way back into the shadows.

“Sir–” Yuta called after him, and the man stopped turning back around with a morose smile. 

“Call me Taeyong, Yuta. We’ve a lot more in common than you think.” And then he was gone, not a second glance before he faded into the darkness. 

Yuta turned his attention back on Mark, all else forgotten except for him. 

He cupped Mark’s face in his hands, lifting it so that their eyes met. “Does it hurt?”

Mark hummed, “It did. Not much anymore. ‘s just ache-y.”

His eyes were hooded, though Yuta could still see the hellfire that blazed beneath them. Mark tipped his head forwards, caught Yuta’s lips in a soft kiss. He tasted of metal and ash, and Yuta had to wonder whether this was remnant of the sludge, or if this was something Mark had been putting up with for millennia. 

It was a question for another time. Mark pulled away first. He yawned, mouth stretching wide to reveal a set of shiny fangs. 

“Are you ready?” Yuta asked softly, Mark looked absolutely shattered. 

Mark nodded and laughed sleepily as Yuta lifted him upright. When they stood, Mark stretched out his wings. He winced at the leathery sound they made when they extended fully. Yuta ran his hand along the width of one, pressing a kiss to Mark’s cheek when he made it to the base where the wings connected to Mark’s back.

Mark smiled, lifted a weary hand to cup Yuta’s cheek. He spoke quietly, like forming words took all of his strength, “I’m ready.”

He folded his wings behind himself and linked his hand with Yuta’s. 

Yuta led the way. He knew it well. He was concerned about what Mark would think of _The Underneath_ , it wasn’t nearly as beautiful as _The Above,_ but it was home, and it was better than being apart. Yuta hoped he wouldn’t think of his sacrifice in vain. 

As they took the passage Yuta had used for years, Mark squeezed his hand a little tighter. He didn’t seem afraid, it was merely a reminder that he was there. That whatever happened, they would still be together. As they descended, as they took the path that would lead them down, Yuta felt hopeful about the future. 

When they emerged into the very centre of _The Underneath_ —Mark’s eyes wide, burning with the same hellfire that seemed to be everywhere down there— Yuta grinned.

For the first time in thousands of years, he felt whole again, and the expression on Mark’s face when he turned to Yuta told him that he felt the same.

**Author's Note:**

> Bonus points if you guess who "The Creator" is.
> 
> [twt](https://twitter.com/thekeehorse)  
> • [cc](https://curiouscat.me/ghoulhwa)  
> 


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